Show SV EW Y 0 S 0 C LEG lccy lt leutu utu I 1 I 1 at la th alie public K he how wany 1 nv n 1 v bat new w valk city has bas a di 11 1 a ana ami ne that it youit yi uit v a it in ill tl i nya Q lauy peria ei i 1 evv i ki ent ante I 1 en cn tl the 0 o prec precision ision il ali h aich yew new yorker can spot a the instant the stranger undertakes to pronounce the name of the principal rin streets in the town we call all it broadway emphasizing the last syllable very strongly lt it appears to io be quite a trick to do this and it is ia evidently an unnatural pronunciation for we notice that the very great majority of strangers say broa wa so we spot them on the instant and ask them from what part of the country they hail just to show them that there is something about them that is not citified city fied fled and to set them puzzling about whether it is in the shape of their hat or the style of their shoes or w t b is people figi fi G i the south betray the fact by calling our houston street hewston Hew stoa street as that name is pronounced from to texada to the Clesa chesapeake peake but we play as strange a trick with another name for we call counties Co enties slip quincy slip As no one would do that naturally we detect strangers by that pronunciation the name of hoboken is another that we trifle with calling it Hab bucken but in ways and bywords other than these thase I 1 can pick out a new yorker any where that he and I 1 may meet whether it be in boston or in the rocky mountains I 1 can do this thia by noticing how he ha pronounces the or sound in such words as birth bird earth heard etc all the rest of the country pronounce those chose words burth burd arth and hurd not so BO the new yorker he is cara fully taught not to do so BO in all the public schools as well as by his parents at home bome the queer little twist that enters so largely into our language in marring one of the cardinal sounds that compose it is thus expressed by our tongues ur Is how we say earth bur is how we say bird we say hur tor for heard and mur der for murder all of us who were born bom in new york have heard the public school teach teachers cro insisting upon this peculiar twist comm commanding anding the pupils to put on the trademark k as fighting men wice once wore the coat of arms of their feudal masters most of us too have heard nice careful little girls on the way home from school correcting careless companions by insisting that you say burd you must say it m nicely cely bur 0 of all the senseless and unmusical and bad things that are done to english that Is one of the worst because one expects to hear bear a langr language age at its best in the greatest city of a country and thither foreigners repair to study english and d then perhaps to go back home and teach it with a whole lot of little tri tricks alts like lika that in their heads to be solemnly taught and scattered until no one knows where the mischief will end of course I 1 do not want the reader to understand that very nice people murder the language in these or any other ways but the great masses of new yorkers those who get their learning in the public schools and whose tongues were trained in old now new york homes of the middle class these afe are the victims of this most ped peculiar filim F habit cor C or providence journal |